I've always been confident about my health and future (ask YouGov, i'm always giving myself at least an 8 out of 10). I have a fitness nut husband who makes sure I eat extremely well and who attempts to limit my martini intake, and I have a fantastic PT who tones up the saggy edges and pushes me to run when I don't want to.
Three months ago, on holiday in Cyprus, I felt really uncomfortable and sore when pulling on underwear and swimming shorts. Thank god I don't wear Speedos or i'd have been in agony!
At that stage, checking myself, I didn't notice anything unusual. A week after getting home I did though. Obviously lumpy and not a nice feeling. Guys. You will know when there is something wrong. Don't ignore it.
It all happened rather quickly after that. I went to see a GP who referred me to a specialist and on the day of the appointment I was sent straight to ultrasound with the specialist asking the department to call him straight away with the results. Minor panic set in.
The results came back and I was then sent down for blood tests, a CT scan and told i'd be receiving an inpatient surgery appointment within the next five days. Major panic set in.
My husband was away on a stag weekend so I had to make the slightly traumatic call asking him to come back. He was on the next train straight away.
The surgery was a day case and I was then at home recovering for a couple of weeks thinking that i'd had a near miss but it would now all be fine.
Routine appointments were booked and at the first one it was mentioned that a scan had shown up slightly higher tumour marker levels (these are elevated levels of certain hormones which may be secreted by tumours). The levels were minor so I carried on as usual. But it's weird how the closer it got to results day, the stress levels rose. My job isn't the most stress free of roles, so I took a little extra time. You've no idea how much I wanted to tell that pushy manager the real reason his work hadn't been done as quickly as usual. You sometimes need time to step back and just breathe.
The results were inconclusive so more blood tests. Stupidly I charged ahead and thought that if nothing had shown up conclusively by now then it never was. So I went back into the office and by 2pm I was leaving, having had a call from my oncologist telling me I needed to go in for chemotherapy as soon as I could. Cue more traumatic calls and a little meltdown which was probably more self indulgent than anything else.
Now i'm here hooked up to my new best friend Baxter and waiting for the killer chemicals to kill the little bastard in me.
Because I had testicular cancer to start with, the new cancer is also testicular and is 95% treatable through chemo so the odds are more than with me. Anyone who's ever been to the races with me will know that i'm good with the odds.
The other side effect of testicular cancer and one of the tumour markers they look for is gonadatropin. This is the pregnancy hormone. Well mine is off the chart and here's the proof. No need for me to wait two minutes, this was immediate. I've always liked Barnaby as a name.
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